


The Heartache Cure

by orphan_account



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Episode: s05e05: Monster Ball, Gen, Steroline FRIENDSHIP, although reading between the lines is completely allowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caroline had learned a long time ago that the first step to curing bad days and heartache was always a slumber party. And breaking up with Tyler after Bonnie died and there was some creepy stuff going on with one of her new college lecturers… well. That needed the biggest freaking tub of SnoBar available.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heartache Cure

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t write Vampire Diaries fanfiction. But I have a feeling the writers are going to miss out on an opportunity to develop the best BROTP this show has had in a while and I just could not let that happen. If anybody has an FF.net or a Tumblr account and they want to post this then go ahead, with all my blessing.

The screen of her phone was bleary before Caroline’s streaming eyes, but she continued to try and focus on the number as she lost the battle with her tears. Tyler’s name danced tauntingly in her vision and she wanted nothing more than to call him and take it all back. They couldn’t be over. Not after everything. Not after how much she’d let herself fall in love with him; head-over-heels, heart and soul, mind and body… everything intensified by the fact that she was a Vampire and _oh_ how Vampires could _feel_. The aching in her chest made her remember being staked and she wanted to run and scream and break things and _turn it off_.

She stilled at the last thought, a little alarmed at how much she’d listened to the temptation of switching off her Humanity. She needed a distraction. She needed her friends, so she wouldn’t do something stupid like lose herself or go on a Screw Seventeen Guys in One Night spree or kill a bunch of people. Of course, this realization only made her remember Bonnie and the grief that Tyler no longer held at bay had fresh tears coursing down her cheeks. Steeling her shoulders she flipped away from Tyler’s number and instead paged to Elena’s.

The phone rang five times before it was picked up. “Caroline? I’m going to have to call you back. We’re having a bit of an issue.” Her friend’s voice was strained and angry and a little scared and Caroline’s stomach dropped a little.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“I’ll tell you later. I have to go.”

“Elena? What’s happen-“

The line went dead. She considered calling again but decided against it, hoping that everything would be sorted out by the time her friend called her again. She flipped to Matt’s phone but got only the voicemail. Desperation led her to call Jeremy but he didn’t pick up either. Her second and third tries to Matt proved just as fruitless.

She was having one of the worst days of her life, and she didn’t know who to call. Her mom? She was busy working. And even though they were a whole lot closer her mom wouldn’t be able to be that person Caroline needed right then. Tears began to choke her again and it was an almost automatic gesture that had her calling Stefan.

“I’m not on a Ripper bender,” his harsh, clipped voice told her at once. “I just want rip off _Damon’s_ head.”

“What happened?” She suddenly realized she hadn’t seen Stefan since their dance. He’d disappeared and she’d been so wrapped up in Tyler that she hadn’t thought to look for him. Even though she’d stopped checking up on him hourly – he was learning about control and didn’t need another person breathing down his neck waiting for him to fail – she suddenly felt a rush of fear for him. It was always _for_ him, because the Ripper took over but Stefan always had to deal with the aftermath. “Stefan, where are you?”

“The woods,” he said shortly. She drew in a shaky breath, wiping furiously at her cheeks, but before she could drag more information out of him he spoke again. “Are… you okay?” The harshness was gone, and _Stefan_ poured across the phone line at her. She had to choke out a little laugh even as fresh tears formed.

“I’m having a pretty shitty day, too.” She meant to leave it at that, but suddenly the words poured from her mouth as more tears started leaking from her eyes. “Tyler and I broke up.”

There was a pause from the other end, long and pregnant. “Oh. Uh…”

He was floundering; she could tell. He didn’t really know Tyler or their relationship – of course he didn’t know what to say. She felt suddenly like a stupid little girl and curled around her pillow as she tried to keep her voice steady. “Yeah. More relationship drama.” Her laugh came out choked and painful and shrill. “What’s your dysfunction this evening?”

“Damon killed me. Twice. For… I don’t even know why.”

“ _What_?” What the _hell_ was going on? She was going to call Elena and get the truth after this, so help her. Another steeling breath as her fingers brushed away tears angrily. “Okay. You win this one. You… you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. Are you?” And it was Stefan again – the old Stefan – bleeding through to her ear so at least one thing had gone right on this shithole of a night.

“’Course I will be. Nothing really serious. I’ll leave you to your brooding and whatever and I’ll… um… catch up with you in a few hours. Call me if you need to, okay?”

Another long, long pause. “Yeah. Okay.”

She put down with a goodbye and dialled Elena back. She got voicemail and almost threw her phone against the wall. She could not deal with her heartbreak and the possibility of another End of the World all at once. She would go _insane_ with all the emotions.

“Okay. Caroline. Okay.” She made herself walk to the bathroom and wash her face, even though she couldn’t quite get a grip on her tears. Then she changed into normal clothes and faced herself in her full-length mirror. “Okay, Caroline.” She held her head high. “You can do this. It’s no big deal. You have to get to the bottom of Creepy Biology Teacher and Elena keeping secrets. You are not allowed to go to pieces. You are _fine_. You can-“

Something moved in the mirror and she looked up to find Stefan in her doorway, head cocked to the side and forehead furrowed as he looked at her. She turned to face him with a question on her lips – _what happened? What are you doing here?_ – but the expression that met hers was exactly the one she’d seen when she was falling apart in a bathroom and it _broke_ her. In a flash she’d flung herself at him and was weeping quite hysterically into his shoulder, babbling half-sentences that were nonsense to _her_ and possibly sounded like a completely different language to him. He held her close for a while but when she showed no signs of slowing down he simply picked her up, as easily as if she was nothing, and carried her to her bed. She crawled into his lap and poured out all her feelings and fears and regrets and anger into his shirt. She told him about Klaus and Matt and her dreams as a little girl of getting married. She told him about the future she’d dreamed up of her and Tyler at college together. She told him how she wanted to call Tyler and apologise and take him back and _rip his throat out_. And the whole time he simply held her, one hand around her waist and the other on her head. Like a big brother.

When she’d finally cried herself out the embarrassment came, making her sit up and pat the sodden patch on his shirt uselessly. “Sorry. I guess I…”

He cocked his head at her again. “Wanna go out and get drunk?” he asked her slowly, one hand still on her head.

“Thanks but… these sorts of things need a slumber party cure. Junk food and _The Notebook_.” His gaze remained mild and completely blank and realization suddenly struck. “You’ve technically never seen any of the epics, have you? _The Notebook, Titanic, PS: I Love You_ … Not even any of the olden day ones!” Suddenly, inexplicably, there was a smile tugging at her lips.

Stefan looked at her wearily. “Why do I have the strongest desire to run away?”

“Uh-uh.” She wriggled off his lap and turned to point at him imperiously. “You’re not going anywhere. We are having a pity party slumber party and we are going to eat all our cares away. You are in charge of getting the SnoBar.”

“I thought I wasn’t going anywhere,” he told her, the faintest hint of teasing on his face.

She glared and waved off his comment impatiently. “Nowhere I don’t tell you to go! Okay. You’re in charge of the SnoBar and I’ll rent the movies so long. I hope my card is working…”

“Because heaven forbid we commit a crime as heinous as _piracy_.” He was definitely teasing her, now, and she threw a pillow at him.

“Just get going. Be back here in half an hour and we’ll get this started.”

He rose to his feet but shot her another mild look. One that had an undercurrent of something… darker. “Not to be a party pooper but… what is a SnoBar?”

Her stomach sank at the hidden bitterness of his words. She’d forgotten he’d forgotten. “Sorry.” Her voice was small, the enthusiasm and command gone. “It’s um… an ice cream brand. Alcoholic ice cream. Any of them are good so…”

“We’re vampires,” he told her slowly. “And you want to get ice cream?”

“Hey. Ice cream is essential for a pity party slumber party, okay? Don’t question the master. Just go.”

He raised his hands, the bitterness gone and replaced by a gentle amusement that made her able to breathe easier once more. “Yes, Master.”

Renting the movies directed her energy and her thoughts, for a while. But as soon as her task was done the pain started licking at her thoughts again. Pretty soon she was wallowing in the What Ifs and reliving the moment Tyler walked out the door until she was sure she was going to start crying _again_. And then another thought hit: Stefan was having a worse day than she was. And yet she was controlling him, making him do silly little girly pity parties when his life was a huge ball of suck and he probably just wanted to get out and figure things out his way. What right did she have to make him play the part she wanted him to play? She was controlling yet another person. She needed to _stop_.

“I wasn’t sure which flavour either of us liked,” Stefan’s voice said a moment before she heard her dorm door close with a click. “So I ran a general survey with everybody who was in the store at the time and got the winner.”

She slipped off the bed, not looking at him as she went to fetch a spoon. Caroline hesitated on her way back to the bed, finally looking up at him to find him watching her, confused.

“I… You don’t _have_ to do this. I’m sorry. I just… I’m sure you have better things to do… I was… I mean…”

“Caroline.” He was suddenly in front of her, green eyes bright in the dim light and so full of the compassion and caring and amusement that she remembered. How had she not thought to try harder to reach him for _three months_? “I meant what I said, okay? You’ve got me. Because I’ve got you. I’m _pretty_ sure that’s how friendship works, right?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to protest again, but he sighed and lifted her – for the second time that day – and dumped her gently on the bed. “Just play the damn movie,” he grumbled, snatching the spoon from her hand and spearing it into the ice cream.

She obeyed, making room for him before balancing the laptop on their legs. The opening scene started to roll, but her mind was too preoccupied to take in the beauty of the lake.

“Stefan? Can I ask you something?”

For a moment he tensed. “Yeah. Sure. What’s up?”

“Why… Why are you putting up such a front for everybody else? I mean… this is _you_ , right here, with me. The real you. The you I know. But with everybody else you’re so…” ‘Bitchy’ wasn’t _quite_ right. ‘Guarded’ wasn’t either. “You’re so _not you_.”

“Is this me?” he asked her quietly, making her look up at once. His face was torn and _hurting_ and it made her want to pull him closer so she could hold him like he’d held her. “I don’t know who I am, Caroline. I mean, you say I’m one way but as the Ripper I’m another way and Elena-“ He broke off, his jaw clenched tight. “I don’t _know_ who I am and I will _not_ allow other people or diaries or _anything_ to make me into something. Because who I was ended me in a huge pile of heartbroken _shit_ and I… I don’t know who I want to be _now_.”

“Okay,” she mumbled, and he looked at her with wide eyes. “That’s fair. I hate people telling me who I am, too. But at the same time… I _know_ you, Stefan. You don’t remember but I’ve seen you in every state possible. Angry. Hungry. Completely numb. And you didn’t have to hide from me then, and you don’t have to hide from me now. I’m just saying that this… this right here? This is you. And I know he’ll come back. And I’m rooting for him. And I wish you’d show everybody else him again.”

“What if you’re wrong?” he demanded. “What if this isn’t me any more?”

“Then I’ll be friends with the new you,” she replied steadily, holding his gaze. “You don’t have to hide from me, Stefan. Not from me. So whoever you really are… I want him. No pretences. No bitchy ones, no guarded ones, not even any nice ones because you know that this Stefan is the one who is my best friend. Okay?”

The first genuine smile she’d seen on his face for ages made an appearance. “Okay. Thank you.”

“You got me, I got you. Friendship.” She curled her arm through his. “Now shhh. You’re missing the important plotline.”

When she started crying again his fingers brushed away the tears without a sound. “Caroline?”

“Yeah?” she sniffed.

“I don’t remember Tyler. Or Klaus. Or… your relationship. But… Tyler’s an idiot. I’m definitely…” He made a face. “Team Caroline.”

She laughed and curled closer to him, using his shoulder as a pillow. “Thank you,” she whispered, wishing she could make him see how much she meant it.

He squeezed her hand and together they watched Allie and Noah die.

 


End file.
